Brad Zellar –Illustration by James Dankert It’s my older brother Rich’s 25th wedding anniversary this weekend, and his wife’s family is throwing a big party for the special occasion. There are almost certainly no two words in tandem that I hate more than “special occasion.” My brother and his wife may be the only couple on the … Read more
Many a man has cherished for years as his hobby some vague shadow of an idea, too meaningless to be positively false; he has, nevertheless, passionately loved it, has made it his companion by day and by night, and has given to it his strength and his life, leaving all other occupations for its sake, … Read more
The bad news is that the Twins aren’t scoring many runs. The good news is that neither are the White Sox. As I mentioned the other day, the Central race looks increasingly like it’s going to come down to which team’s pitching can carry it the longest. There is, of course, always the possibility that … Read more
Tonight Jesse Crain picked up his fourth win of the season out of the bullpen, and it looks like he’s on his way to eventually supplanting Juan Rincon as the main set-up man for Joe Nathan. He’s also looking like pretty good insurance for Nathan in the event that disaster strikes. I love Crain enough … Read more
After a time the beggars just sort of receded and became a peripheral blur in my daily routine, the traffic I had to navigate each day on my way to work. There were almost no cars in my part of town. A number of people had beat-up motor scooters or bicycles, but the narrow maze … Read more
–Illustration by James Dankert Fridays aren’t gonna work for me. I’m not a writer, dammit. I can’t be expected to drag my ass home from the day job (and I do mean drag my ass; some days it feels like I’m hauling a Volkswagon Beetle behind me), watch a baseball game, and then sit down … Read more
It’s probably something of a red flag when your barber has a Superman logo tattooed on his forearm. And this is probably not the sort of monologue you want to hear from some guy while he’s cutting your hair: I’m not shitting you, I’m at the end of my fucking rope here. I know damn … Read more
Everybody seems to have a blog these days. Your angry libertarian neighbor probably has one, not to mention the cat hoarder across the street, and the tortured teenage poet up the block. In the public mind, unfortunately, the excitable political bloggers tend to be regarded as representative—or perhaps symptomatic—of the whole phenomenon, and they certainly … Read more
Browsing through Spot On: The Art of Zines and Graphic Novels at the Minnesota Center for Book Arts was something of a jarring experience. As someone who spent (or lost) more than a decade of the prime years of my life as a service sector drone, haunting independent record and book stores, and scribbling furiously … Read more
“Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” would be an appropriate, if obnoxious, theme song for Ron Gardenhire’s Twins, for this or any season. The mantra in the Minnesota clubhouse during Gardenhire’s tenure has always been, “We’re just trying to win each series. The rest will take care of itself.” That’s a decent, ambitious goal for … Read more